October 12, 2005

Sendak's Descent into Limbo

Amazing and astonishing as usual. The talk is more than an hour long and filled with wonderful new stories, especially his story about finding the grown up Rosie, some 20 years ago. Funny and poignant and always a joy, I've seen Sendak at least three times in personal appearances and he never disappoints. I wish I'd been there, yet this is certainly the next best thing.

The key image of the talk centers on a painting of Christ's Descent into Limbo by Mantegna, which inspired Sendak's designs for "The Magic Flute" as well as the cover design for the book "We are all in the Dumps with Jack and Guy". I should point out - I say 'inspired by' while he openly admits it's more like 'shamelessly stole from'. He quotes Blake (I'm paraphrasing) - "Bad artists seem to copy, Good artists just copy."